In Germany, there is no trade union membership wage premium, while the membership fee amounts to 1% of the gross wage. Therefore, prima facie, there are strong incentives to freeride on the benefits of trade unionism. We establish empirical evidence for a private gain from trade union membership...

Using German panel data, we assess the causal effect of job loss, and thus of an extensive income shock, on risk attitude. In line with predictions of expected utility reasoning about absolute risk aversion, losing one’s job reduces the willingness to take risks. This effect strengthens in...

Using German survey data, we investigate the relationship between involuntary job loss and regional mobility. Our results show that job loss has a strong positive effect on the propensity to relocate. We also analyze whether the high and persistent earnings losses of displaced workers can in...

Using survey data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) this paper analyses to what extent alternative income sources, reactions within the household context, and redistribution by the state attenuate earnings losses after job displacement. Applying propensity score matching and fixed...

There is a large body of literature analyzing the relationship between objective economic conditions and voting behavior, but there is very little evidence of how perceived economic insecurity impacts on political preferences. Using seventeen years of household panel data from the German...

In the case of collective redundancies, employers are forced to regard certain characteristics when deciding who is going to be dismissed. This paper develops a procedure to derive an empirical based weighting scheme between the characteristics relevant for this selection (age, disability,...

Using representative German employee data, we analyse the role of works councils for the incidence of severance payments subsequent to dismissals. While there is a positive relation with severance payments after those dismissals which stem from plant closings, the incidence of a works council is...

This paper analyses job separations in Germany using data from the German Socio- Economic Panel spanning from 1984 to 2003. Based on detailed reasons for job separation and different SOEP samples, the paper attempts to establish the nature of job separations in Germany. It brings to light some...

This paper examines the added worker effect (AWE), which refers to the increase of labor supply of individuals in response to a sudden financial shock in family income, that is, unemployment of their partner. While previous empirical studies focus on married women's response to those shocks, I...